DAVE SHOJI WAS A SOCAL STAR TAILBACK AT UPLANDS H.S. WAY BACK WHEN; GEE...WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO THE HAWAII FOOTBALL PROGRAM IF HE HAD APPLIED AND GOTTEN THE U.H. HEAD FOOTBALL COACH JOB INSTEAD OF THE WAHINE V.B. JOB?

2. According to Ryan he mentioned Hewitt,and Lauren Duggins Chun. There may be others,but he did not say.For you Honolulu fans,going to be nice to see Hewitt again. Thought Lauren was teaching somewhere's on Oahu,but he mentioned that she will be flying in.
Thought Cal Poly would give the Wahine problems.Watched part of the Northridge match,and i think UCSB can beat them.

So we keep hearing nice bounce back or words like that but IMO Cal Poly presented no real challenge that has me convinced. I think further testing like the up coming match at CSUN is needed before we really know.

Poly's serving seemed soft to me allowing the Wahine to easily run their offense,there was little blocking.Their hitting % was nothing to get exited about.

I did see one new wrinkle involving Tai that worked perfectly but only saw it once,anyone else see it ?

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6)I heard Duggins and her family moved back to the mainland a year ago maybe even earlier than that.

Agree with LC. The true test will come on the mainland. I thought the play you referred to looked like a "pistol option" attack. Nikki talks a lot about the help and advice she gets from her brother. Maybe the coach felt left out. By the way, she is so much more athletic than I thought she would be. A freshman player of her caliber and potential should keep a Coach from thinking about retirement.

During the break of the Fox televised match with LBSU, Shoji said jokingly he would not stay for another 10 years, and more likely 1 or 2 more. I feel when the one person he has in mind is completely capable to take over the HC position, he will then go.

Vorster has to learn not to reach back and learn from Nikki that 6'4 girls can hit the floor too.

Thought Mita was picking up more of RH cross court shots last night, too, check her digs. Noticed Tai from right back, too. Any wrinkle/unexpected attack angle would help diversify offense. I thought Wahine were better at closing doughnut hole in middle of floor defense, too. But agree CP wasn't same quality arms as UCSB's. Love to see so many local girls coming in and across the net great for local high schoolers to see the caliber they can aspire to - and not just as Wahine. Go Wahine!

But in the ranking that really matters, the precipitous cliffs of the RPI require a balancing act that's difficult to maintain for those attempting to climb to the top. We shall see if the Bows' slip was fatal or not soon enough. (Obviously I am going to attack Mt. Olomana today. Lol.)

better effort from everybody all around tonight. the only real concern was tai's early errors, which she quickly shook off after set 1, thankfully. and adolpho and uiato never really got going, although on the couple set on which they did connect timing-wise, she crushed the sets.

the long break before they face northridge on the road could cut both ways. they can get work on things in the gym, scout their next opponents, and take care of things off the court as well ... but we've also sometimes seen hawaii be real sluggish when they come back to play, after a long break like that. they'll be on the road when they emerge from the 2-week layoff, against a quality conference opponent.

let's hope they get themselves up and energized during this break, and not get complacent...

After watching UH lose to UCSB and UH blitz CalPoly, I watched the CalPoly @UCSB match and couldn't believe that those were the same teams we played just one week later. I am left to wonder why Coach felt before this weekend that CalPoly "is a little bit better [than UCSB].

As long as opponents feel that U-H is the University of Hartong and not University of Hawai'i, we are vulnerable.

In any case, bravo, na Wahine and staff, for regrouping after the gut check!

I am hoping that there is a lineage in the HC position...that when he retires he either picks Scott Wong or Robin Ah Mow and then they turn it over to Kawika Shoji who seemed engaged in his father's coaching during the games he saw in SSC. (provided Kawika or Erik are interested). With any of those 4, we will have a HC emeritus in Shoji.

10. believe we mentioned that during the LBSU match last week. I see him staying at least through 2014.
20. Who knows what the selection committee will be looking for when Shoji retires. Ah Mow-Santos likely isn't interested with 2 young children.
Have thrown out a number of names in the past. Wong among them.
not sure why Kawika's and Erik's names keep getting put in the mix, particularly if their dad retires in the next few years. Their focus is on making the 2016 Olympic team, on pursuing their pro careers. plus they have no coaching experience at the college level.
whoever will be hired will have to have established coaching credentials. but that debate should be left for when Shoji decides to retire.

5. please unlock your caps.
Shoji was a three-sport all-Star at Upland High, was selected the Male athlete of the year senior year over Rollie Fingers. He says it was because Rollie only played 1 sport and he played 3.
he was on a baseball scholarship at UCSB. He did not play volleyball until IM at UCSB.
As for coaching at UH, he only got the Wahine job because Punahou wouldn't let Chris McLachlin do both. So Shoji was the second choice to replace Alan Kang.
why you think he would have applied to be UH football coach is beyond me, given that they weren't looking for a football coach in 75. It was Larry Price (1974-76) and then Dick Tomey.

2. you didn't miss it. they haven't given out a list of alumnae who will be playing.
did ask as to when they might have a practice this week so I could talk to them. Both Lisa Strand-Ma'a and Marcie Wurts Nowack thinks it might be Wednesday but nothing confirmed.

Just a thought but since all the team's seem to be anxious to stop Em from the back middle, wouldn't it be smarter to insert a second backrow hitter, possibly Long or Kastl since if she goes up the block is all going to the middle of the net which leaves the line shot unblocked? Not sure if that is even possible, just wondered. Go Wahine!

Every team will double on emily. UCSB did it, so did Cal Poly. Cal Poly still lost. UCSB beat Hawaii because
of brilliant coaching. They know when hartong was being set. They knew when Nikki was being set. They
knew micro seconds before the ball was touched, where it was headed. Enough time to close their block.
Not faulting team or coaches. Sometimes, especially during schedule play, team and coaches can wander
away from playing fundamentals. With the open available, it might be a good time for Robin Ah Mow and
staff to review position fundamentals. Cliche' - Its the little things that count.
The UCSB coach will a great future ahead for her teams.

31. I think you should give the first year coach at UCSB a break, someone who had to play 10 of the first 11 matches on the road. Although 3 of their wins are in 5, 3 of their losses are in 5 as well.
they could easily be 11-5 or 5-11.Much like Hawaii 27-3 last season
lost to Cal in 5 (could have won)
went 4-0 in Big West went it went to 5. Could have lost all of those.UH could have been 23-7
Don't know if it was brilliant coaching but it was some brilliant performance by Gaucho players against Hawaii which had an off night by the entire team.

i'm not sure what shoji meant when he said he thought cal poly might've been a better team than ucsb.

perhaps (and i'm only just guessing here) he might have meant that he thought cal poly would match up better against them. cal poly has 2 very good middles -- one an all-american who can dominate a match (thankfully hawaii contained her most of the night), and the other a freshman (who turned in the more effective night, shredding hawaii's defense all night long).

hawaii sometimes has trouble defending against opposing teams with active and effective middles. (san diego earlier this year is a case in point.)

the problem though is that cal poly's outside hitters didn't match up very well against hawaii. that, cal poly's poor passing, and hawaii looking to rebound from the loss the night before ... all combined to work against cal poly, despite potentially having a middle attack that could pester hawaii.

32, just making a smart remark on 29. remark on brilliant coaching. It was good coaching not brilliant, and a whole lot of the entire team making silly mistakes the entire night. I was thinking the girls would come out of it, but it never happened. I'm sorry but an average outing by UH would have beat them handily, not convincingly but handily. My personal opinion.

Wow, just came back from a short business trip and long and behold....
On what I thought will be an easy weekend for the Wahine turned out to be a nightmare.
I agree with Warriorfan et all, I've seen UCSB play and there's nothing on Friday that they did differently to win the match. They won because of UH's error prone performance. There is nothing else to discuss about it. I watched the game and could not believe I was watching a 3rd ranked team RPI wise. As a fan I could not help but be very disappointed as they have given all the critics the reason to not respect what they have worked on from day 1 and once again in the defense position on trying to host the subregional comes tourney time.
RPI just came out and Wahine went from 3-10th. IMHO, they're performance does not deserve to be on the top 16 this week.

The field is wide open and a loss to UCSB is reminiscent of the loss to Cal last year which I still think the single valid reason why bows did not host sub regional. I hope the Wahine proves me wrong with the tough road games ahead of them. CSUN is threat as well as UCSB at home.

RPI sometimes hard to figure. For example, Creighton dropped out of the AVCA rankings but still #7 in RPI. Positive for Hawaii in regard to opponents on schedule: Texas #1, Creighton; and San Diego #13.